Your Own TV Show

Here's a hypothetical for you.

You have your own TV show. On that show you show off all your talents. You may recite some poetry. You may tell a story or two. Perhaps you play a musical instrument. Guests with complementary talents also participate. The show starts out crude, but over the course of twenty five years, the show is refined and you are pleased. Then you are tapped on the shoulder.

Its the Chief Technician. He says, "I don't rightly know how to tell you this; but you see those cameras over there." You glance at the cameras that have been religiously recording your weekly show for twenty five years and you nod. "Well those cameras don't work. Never have. Your show was never broadcasted. Well gotta go. Don't want to keep the missus waiting." He leaves. You sit down in a daze.

Then two bedraggled looking gentlemen come up to you. "Sir, you don't know us, but I'm Elmer and this here is Floyd. We clean up around here. We just wanted you to know that we so look forward to your show every week. Don't tell no one. But we stop cleaning and sit over there yonder and watch your show every week. Never missed a one for twenty five years." Floyd grinned widely just before they shook my hand with a little half bow and then walked off.

Now a pessimistic man would have just sat there and cried I'm sure for wasting his creative life away on a show that was never shown. A hopeless man would have cried harder. But an optimist would have been happy that his show brought joy into the hearts of two men and it really didn't matter if two people enjoyed the show or two million liked it. Is it about getting as many people as possible to see your work? Or is it internal? You did it. It was something that you could be proud of and, as a bonus, two others liked it very much. Do we do it for others or do we do it for ourselves?

Emily Dickinson comes to mind. She wrote all of her poetry on scraps of paper and folded them up and stuffed them into a dresser drawer. She never sent them to anyone. No one ever read them, as far as we can tell, while she was alive. Then fifty years after her death they are discovered, published and , well, you know the rest.

Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick and as far as he knew it was a commercial failure. It wasn't until sixty years later that some academic brought it to life and it is now an American classic of course.

I'm not sure where I come down on this exercise in existential crisis. I do know I get a great feeling when a stranger comes up to me and tells me how much he enjoyed my novel. I suppose if only one person read my book and liked it, that would be enough. At least it should be. Shouldn't it?